All posts tagged "laptop magazine"

Thursday, July 21, 2011

"'It's kind of hard to improve on a 4.5-star rating. And yet Apple's new 13-inch MacBook Air (starting at $1,299, $1,599 as configured) is better than its predecessor in some key ways,' Mark Spoonauer reports for Laptop Magazine."

Well this didn't take long, saying that "when you combine a sleek ultraportable design with a great display and touchpad then nearly double the performance-without sacrificing battery life-you're left with a winner." I really do love these laptops (once they put in the SSD that is), but can't everything be improved at some level? Then again, when this beauty outperforms the MacBook Pro, what other rating can you give it?

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

"Who wouldn't jump at the chance to wait on hold only to barely understand the person on the other end? And why wouldn't you want to conduct a live chat with a tech support rep who asks you a million questions before addressing your issue? Fortunately, not all laptop tech support is bad, and knowing who's good could tip the balance during your next shopping trip."

I'll spoil the surprise for you: Apple is at the top, with Dell and Samsung fairly close behind. The latter two have improved a great deal since the last report, so it looks like someone is paying attention. Do your own experiences with the companies in this report match up with the results? From my perspective, the 22 minute average call time for Dell seems rosy - I'd venture my calls with Dell are always 45 minutes or more...and usually rt 15 minutes of that are my call being transferred from one department to another while someone tries to figure out who can assist me. About 20% of the time, said transfer disconnects my call, which means I have to start over again. I am not fond of Dell tech support, though once I get to the right person, they usually help me with a fair degree of competence.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

"Apple's ultimate ultraportable combines a barely-there profile with a high-resolution display, instant-on functionality, and long battery life. It's as if the 13-inch MacBook Pro won The Biggest Loser."

You can really see why they say this too, since the MacBook Air is 1.5 pounds lighter, has enough processing power to supplant your primary computer, has a higher resolution than the 13-inch MacBook Pro and is FAST with it's flash storage. According to this review by Laptop Magazine, if you "want a mobile Mac this machine is almost perfect."

What isn't perfect for Laptop Magazine is that the MacBook Air 13-inch is too tall and deep for 13-inch laptop, the keyboard is not backlit and flash storage not designed to be upgraded. I really like my backlit keyboard and I think the ability to upgrade storage is definitely a hindrance for me. I've been thinking about getting a new laptop, leaning towards a MacBook Pro 15-inch, but after reading about this machine I'm back to pondering options again.